Blizzard Removing Diablo III's Auction House

[Gahars]

Going once, going twice... told!

When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades. But as we've mentioned on different occasions, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot. With that in mind, we want to let everyone know that we've decided to remove the gold and real-money auction house system from Diablo III.

We feel that this move along with the Loot 2.0 system being developed concurrently with Reaper of Souls™ will result in a much more rewarding game experience for our players.

We're working out the details of how the auction house system will be shut down, but we wanted to share the news as soon as we made the decision in order to give everyone as much advance notice as possible. Please note that the shutdown will occur on March 18, 2014. We will keep everyone informed as we work through this process.

Battle.net

They're dismantling it? Jeez, I know it was condemned by players, Blizzard, but you didn't have to take it so literally.

Anyway, this isn't too much of a surprise. Blizzard employees have all but said that the service was a total failure, and it was even removed from the recently released console ports. Some might say it's two years too late, but hey, better that than never, right? Right? Guys?

Also, keep in mind, this doesn't remove the "always online" mode from the game at all. So yeah, Diablo III may still dia-blow, but at least it'll do so just a little bit less.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Alternative title: "Blizzard kills capitalism, dirty commies win."

 

[AngryGeek416]

I like this, it's just a little to late.

 

[gokujr1000]

And here I am still playing Diablo 2 not knowing that the auction house even existed in Diablo 3.

 

[deathking]

This is incredibly stupid , how are trades going to be done now - trade channels , spamming chat , spamming blizards page , d2j ?

How about keep the in game auction house because now you are asking people to go outside of blizzard and get scammed .

 

[Rydian]

Not only is this way too late, but it's not even going away for six more months.

 

[p1ngpong]

Like anyone cares about Diablo III now.

 

[omgpwn666]

I like this, it's just a little to late.

I don't think so. I am fine with this. =)

 

[Taleweaver]

I'm actually surprised at how many people actually use the auction house.

I played the game the first month or so, and in all that time I only used it once to buy gems that dropped pretty much never (with ingame money for which I had pretty much zero actual use). Of course I understand your gear becomes increasingly more important with the more difficult levels, but I had no idea that it's such a common practice to just buy the gear from other players.

Other than that...yeah. A bit too late, indeed.

 

[Sop]

What we need is a lobby system like in D2 so we can have games specifically for trading.

 

[Hells Malice]

if this ties with the expansion, i'll play again.
Assuming the expansion is either free or at the very most, $15 or under. Not going to pay any more than that to fix my damn game.

The auction house should've died sooner, but meh. Better late than never i'd say. If they truly and properly fix gear in the expansion, then D3 might actually be worth playing a bit more. But even still it feels inferior to Diablo 2.

This is incredibly stupid , how are trades going to be done now - trade channels , spamming chat , spamming blizards page , d2j ?

How about keep the in game auction house because now you are asking people to go outside of blizzard and get scammed .

Diablo 2 is getting by just fine to this very day without an auction house. Its unncessary if they implement another way to to trade.

I'd really like to see the way Diablo 2 games were handled, but in a more modern fashion. (like being able to search game titles, filter things out, etc).

 

[DSGamer64]

The gold and real money auction houses have been dying and the player base has been dropping off rapidly, that is why they are getting rid of them.

 

[FAST6191]

Superficially I do not think this is a good move (RMAH was a great concept, possibly badly executed), in practice if that is what their analysts and/or numbers are telling them then I guess they have to.

I hope it has not damaged the concept too much for the next people at Blizzard's level considering the idea to give it a try.

 

[DSGamer64]

It failed because it ruined the whole point of grinding for gear that has made franchises like Diablo popular, hence why it was a bad idea. People were pissed off about it initially when they announced it as a feature prior to the games release, player numbers have dipped heavily since release and the game isn't enjoyable when the pay to win and 'farm for gold to buy your items because you get terrible drops' are your design models, it does not make for a happy player base. I can almost guarantee you that the removal of the auction house will have people flocking back in droves come expansion time. If they wanted to keep it for trading crafting related items, gems and vanity items, that would be fine. They really do need to make the crafting system more viable and less of a massive gold sink for max level players.

 

[Thanatos Telos]

Alternative title: "Blizzard kills capitalism, dirty commies win."

Given your username, I thought you'd love this.

 

[DiscostewSM]

I hadn't played the game for about 10 months now. Think this is a good time to log on, and attempt to sell all my high-quality gear, even if I have to sell it cheap?